alias_sqbr

Stuff that is mundane life is just unappealing; I'd rather have dragons or spaceships or dinosaurs or, you know, Victorian England.

+1 My preference for SF or historical fiction or mysteries over non-genre fiction carries over into romance, where I far prefer historicals, paranormals, and stuff with action/suspense/mystery subplots over regular contemporary romance.

I suspect medieval-setting historicals were more popular in the 80s/90s than they are now - Catherine Coulter wrote a whole string of them earlier in her career, but unfortunately most of her heroes are even bigger alpha male jerkasses than is normal for the genre. Elizabeth Lowell's also written a bunch, but again, my one experience with a book by her (a contemporary set in Hawaii) also involved a hero I loathed.

Laura Kinsale has written two that I've seen other people recommend, and I really liked all of Michelle Willingham's dark ages and medieval-setting romances (the MacEgan and MacKinloch books) as well as Sophia James's Lady with the Devil's Scar. My mother used to really like Elizabeth Chadwick's medieval romances, and since I suspect she's probably even more allergic to non-con/dub-con-in-the-name-of-love than I am, they're probably pretty light in the asshole-hero department.